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Perhaps worth noting that the natives got wiped out too. Modern Greenlanders are descended from people arriving on the scene well after the Scandinavians did.

avar 9y ago
What I meant was that at the time the Norse disappeared there were other people in Greenland living in far harsher conditions, as the map accompanying this article shows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset_culture#Historical_and_cultural_periods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset_culture#Historical_and_... I think you're thinking about Dorset culture which arrived in the south of Greenland after the Norse disappeared, but as the map shows when the Norse disappeared the Thule culture coexisted with them in Greenland far in the north where conditions were worse. Which shows you that the problem was not that the area was uninhabitable, but that the Norse didn't have the knowledge or desire to survive there.
- interfixus 9y ago
  Hanging on for 400 years hardly constitutes not having knowledge or desire how to survive there.
  - avar 9y ago
    They arrived in a period where the weather was particularly good, and proceeded to just practice the same sort of farming that they were used to in Scandinavia and Iceland. But there's no indication that they were actively contacting the native population to learn their hunting techniques, such as how to build kayaks and hunt marine mammals, or venture under the ice to gather mussels[1] etc. Which, to bring this thread around to the original point being made, doesn't suggest that "Greenland [was] uninhabitable", just that a population of people had arrived that didn't know how to make use of it. You might be able to transport a tribe from the middle of the Amazon to northern Greenland today and them not being able to survive, or the other way around. That doesn't mean that either place is uninhabitable. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0qGvC3vqaA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0qGvC3vqaA

avar 9y ago

What I meant was that at the time the Norse disappeared there were other people in Greenland living in far harsher conditions, as the map accompanying this article shows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset_culture#Historical_and_cultural_periods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset_culture#Historical_and_... I think you're thinking about Dorset culture which arrived in the south of Greenland after the Norse disappeared, but as the map shows when the Norse disappeared the Thule culture coexisted with them in Greenland far in the north where conditions were worse. Which shows you that the problem was not that the area was uninhabitable, but that the Norse didn't have the knowledge or desire to survive there.

interfixus 9y ago
Hanging on for 400 years hardly constitutes not having knowledge or desire how to survive there.
- avar 9y ago
  They arrived in a period where the weather was particularly good, and proceeded to just practice the same sort of farming that they were used to in Scandinavia and Iceland. But there's no indication that they were actively contacting the native population to learn their hunting techniques, such as how to build kayaks and hunt marine mammals, or venture under the ice to gather mussels[1] etc. Which, to bring this thread around to the original point being made, doesn't suggest that "Greenland [was] uninhabitable", just that a population of people had arrived that didn't know how to make use of it. You might be able to transport a tribe from the middle of the Amazon to northern Greenland today and them not being able to survive, or the other way around. That doesn't mean that either place is uninhabitable. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0qGvC3vqaA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0qGvC3vqaA